We both went out today but not together.

I had – so I believed (and still believe) – an appointment at the dentist’s at 3:30 this afternoon. Also we needed some shopping. If possible, as well as shopping and dentists, we would like to fit in our daily coffee as well! Working out how to arrange all that – and lunch – into a practicable pattern posed something of a conundrum.

We started with Tigger on her own making a mid-morning dash to fetch coffee from a coffee shop in Pentonville Road called Saint Espresso. Having coffee in the morning for once doesn’t hurt. In fact, it makes a change. The coffee is quite good, too.

Next came lunch and then I prepared for my trip to the dentist. This is where it all went wrong and left me feeling frustrated and annoyed.

Let me say that when the dentist’s appointments were arranged by phone, I wrote them down on my notepad and read them back to the receptionist for her to confirm. I say that so you will understand that I am not delusional, that the appointments were actually set.

As I hate to be late for appointments and as at the dentist’s they sometimes ask me to fill in a health form, I arrived 10 minutes early. I found the door locked. The receptionists (three if them), sitting behind a counter at the back of the reception area, made hand gestures – what was I supposed to make of that? – but made no move to admit me.

Eventually, one of them deigned to approach the door but did not open it. Instead she shouted through the crack in the door. Wearing hearing aids as I do, I find it hard enough to follow normal face to face conversation, never mind conversation through a door.

I said I had come for an appointment at 3:30 to which my interlocutor replied “You’re much too early, Come back at half-past.” Much too early? Ten minutes?

Somewhat irritated, I did go away and then I returned at exactly half-past.

Somewhat reluctantly, I thought, they let me in and asked my name and business. Then came the killer: You do not have an appointment today!

So there it was. Having been shouted at through the door and been turned away for a paltry ten minutes and having to come back, I was now told there was no appointment at all! All that coming and going was for nothing.

I was somewhat upset and resentful, to put it mildly.

I returned home, where Tigger helped me calm down, and tried to relax over a cup of tea. We will wait and see what happens next Monday when I supposedly have another appointment. I must remember not to be early!

That left the shopping. For this, rather than Tigger going to the shop in person, we fired up the trusty Chop Chop app and entered our list of 20 items. Within 30 minutes or so, came a ring on the door bell and there they were, our two bags of groceries. Shopping by remote control – it’s the modern way, don’t you know!

Isn’t it nice when things work as they’re supposed to?